There is little doubt that employees develop a variety of abilities that contribute to a positive workplace culture. Every organisation has unique needs; nonetheless, I believe there are some core qualities and behaviours that contribute to a successful culture.
I think leaders need 7 skills to build a strong culture.
Leaders must adopt these skills to promote excellence, adaptability, and open communication. Influencing without authority, mastering feedback through radical candour, navigating uncomfortable discussions, accepting coaching, and driving change with agility are essential for leaders who want to change cultures.
Leaders improve their personal performance and help their teams and stakeholders create an engaging organisational culture by growing these skills.
It’s a bit like blending a recipe: like ingredients blended to create a perfect dish, leaders integrating these skills into their leadership style contribute to a recipe for a great culture that is rich in diversity, strength, and adaptability.
The 7 crucial skills:
1. Creating self-awareness of own leadership style & impact on others
Understanding ourselves, our natural tendency for collaboration, and how we make decisions and communicate is the first step. Especially when stressed. We often use the DISC behavioural diagnostic to assist leaders in understanding their actions and their impact. The DISC Report describes our natural behaviour style in simple yet powerful language. We can use 1:1 coaching, 360 tools, and stakeholder interviews to develop self-awareness.
2. Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills & managing behaviour
Emotional Intelligence (EI) goes beyond self-awareness. Emotional intelligence is the ability to comprehend our triggers, recognise our emotions, and manage what we do. High levels of EI allow us to respond with empathy rather than having a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ that we subsequently regret. When leaders choose how they show up and respond, their followers have more trust, are more driven, and have higher-quality interactions.
3. Influencing team members and stakeholders without authority
This is not about telling others what to do because we are the boss. Influence without authority refers to getting stakeholder buy-in. Understanding ‘how people tick’ and their natural working and decision-making preferences is the first step to building the skill. We must understand their context (what matters to them, their challenges, and what keeps them up at night) and meet them where they are, in their natural behaviour style, to make it easy for them to work with us. For some it’s statistics and reasoning, for others a riveting story.
4. Giving & receiving feedback and applying radical candor
Team members must understand how they are progressing, what they are doing well, and where they need to improve or change. However, we observe that leaders provide insufficient feedback, typically due to fear of consequences and reactions, as well as a lack of skill in providing feedback well. e teach and practice a variety of basic yet effective frameworks, such as SBI, BIFFO, and EBI, to help leaders land feedback. And once you’ve established trust, you can provide straight feedback = Radical Candour.
5. Having difficult conversations & managing conflict
Difficult conversations are hard because we think they are difficult. What happens without the word ‘difficult’? Just a ‘conversation.’ We often address this ability in our coaching and leadership programmes and help leaders acquire confidence in such interactions, provide frameworks to stay objective and provide ample practice. Conflict management, including constructive conflict, is crucial. Team members should push each other instead of being overly courteous and let groupthink rule.
6. Adopting Leader as Coach skills and coaching for performance
I believe that every leader needs a coach and must be able to coach. Coaching is an often-overlooked skill in leadership. It’s fairly different from other roles and conversations a leader has (managing, mentoring, and training, for example), and it takes some unlearning and professional training to do it effectively. Leaders who coach help their teams reach their full potential and empower their employees. I would go so far as to argue that coaching abilities are required for high-performing teams.
7. Leading change and change agility skills
Because ‘change’ is the one constant in our work lives, all leaders must be capable of not only managing but also driving change. That requires being able influence others to embrace and effectively implement change. All of the skills listed above are required, as well as a grasp of how change impacts individuals. We teach a couple of tried-and-tested change management models that can help executives drive change across their teams.
